Dead Joke in Mourning
by TARDISTRANSPORT
Summary: Jingle bells, Batclan smells, Robin almost broke. The Batmobile never lost its wheel. The Joker never got away.


**A/N: **Hello guys! If anyone's reading this, this is a oneshot. It can be a possible twoshot if I get enough demand (and if I get a good idea for another chapter. If I can't, well, I'll say so). This is my first serious attempt at angst, tragedy, and getting into the mind of an insane person, let's see how that goes. It should be fairly easy for me though, since I _am _insane. In a screwball kind of way, don't worry :D. Please review! I'd love to see how I did. Tell me if I pulled your heartstrings or something.

This is set after the flashback in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. The scene where Harley falls off a cliff? Yeah, that's the one. **MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THAT MOVIE** (for those of you who ignore anything but bold, look at the line above after the warning).

* * *

Harley Quinn could not believe it.

She _couldn't _believe it.

Mister J, dead?

She hadn't seen the act personally. She was being attacked by Batgirl and fell off a cliff. She couldn't walk, she couldn't move, she could barely even breathe. She thought she was just going to die, right there, on the bottom of that ravine, but Poison Ivy found her while searching for a "rare _Epipogium aphyllum_*(1)", or something like that.

Pamela Isley, otherwise known as Poison Ivy, carried her back with her plants to her own house, but not after insisting that she carry her "_Epiglottis asphyxiation_*(2)" in her good arm.

She had been lying on the bed for a couple days trying to recover faster for her Puddin' until she heard the dreadful news.

She kept sobbing. She had been for what seemed like an eternity. _Why did he leave me!? Why _why _**WHY**__ why __**why**__ why __**WHY**__ why _why_**?**__!__**?**__!__**!**_

She felt another wave of sorrow hit her, another fresh batch of tears…

"I'm _sorry!"_ she cried out. "_SORRY! _Maybe if I went to check on Mister J… maybe if I had beaten that spiky little brat-girl… maybe… maybe… maybe…"

She had wanted so badly to move, to cover her eyes from the horrid visions of Mister J's possible deaths. She had wanted so badly to smash her head against the walls, to tear out her hair, to, to… to do _something_.

But she couldn't. The fall off the cliff had broken four of her ribs, her right arm and had fractured her left leg. She had barely been able to breathe, much less smash her head. It had been like the time her Puddin' dropped her from a building.

_It was all my fault. I didn't get the __**joke. The joke. What was the joke?**_

_** WHY COULDN'T I REMEMBER THE JOKE?**_

Poison Ivy was looking at her worriedly. She was making sure she was being cared for, and had been glancing furtively at her, doing her best to comfort Harley. She had even stopped stroking her rare _Epiglottis asphyxiations_.

"Harley, honey, please, stop crying." Poison Ivy was unused to comforting other people. She had never felt the need, as she didn't have any close friends until she met Harley. "Be your usual perky self. Please, honey, don't dampen the atmosphere…" she bit her lip.

Harley laughed at her unintentional joke. She laughed even harder at Poison Ivy's look of worry and confusion. She could feel herself giggling madly, giggling, giggling, giggling… She couldn't stop. She had used up almost all of her tears, so if she couldn't cry, she would laugh instead. She would cry for Mister J, and she would laugh for Mister J.

For as long as she can.

She whooped, she cackled, she giggled, she hacked, she coughed, she made every sound you could possibly make with a mouth. She sounded herself to sleep, stringing noises nonsensically all the way. Some time during this, Poison Ivy had slipped away.

While she slept, her nightmares came. They were worse, far worse. She saw Mister J, horribly pale, sobbing and laughing at the same time. He was radiating emotions like a kaleidoscope; anger, fear, sadness, despair, and blind, deadly hatred. He had his back hunched forward, and was slowly moving towards her, swaying unnaturally, like a marionette being controlled by a clumsy puppet master.

"Harley," his voice crooned. It sounded like it had to travel a long way to reach there. "Now, why would you leave me?"

He sounded pleasant, but there was an eerie quality to it. His eyes were like storm clouds; flashing with anger, thundering with hate, but pouring with regret and sadness.

"I… I didn't mean to…" she mumbled, with her head down. "M-Mister J…" but when she looked up, but he was gone.

Instead, in his place, she saw flashes of what she had done to Robin, only this time, she could feel his pain. It horrified her. _**WHAT HAD SHE DONE!?**_

She saw a flash what her life had been like without her Puddin'. Dull, boring, drab. She had been known as Harleen Quinzel at the time, before she had finally found her true love. She saw her Puddin' sitting in a leather chair, telling her secrets that no one but herself knows. Batman had ruined her "illusion" the first time, but she was sure he was lying. Batman is always a spoil sport.

The flashes were ripped away.

In its place, she saw atrocity after atrocity of what she had done. Of what Mister J had her do. She saw her assaulting and murdering faceless person after faceless person, and all in the name of her love. She looked back at the monster she was and regretted. She wanted to place a name to the nameless, faceless people she had killed, assaulted, tortured, and maimed. She wanted to say sorry.

Suddenly, she was transported to an empty field. There were the same faceless people lying facedown on the grass. She saw them slowly get up. They were like the ones in that zombie film. They stretched out their hands and _ran. _They ran towards Harley, they grabbed her, and they began choking, punching, clawing, doing _anything _to repay the pain that Harley gave them back a hundredfold.

There was one person that had a face, and he was a bit shorter than the faceless masses.

Tim Drake.

"_YOU!_" he snarled vengefully. "_You MURDERED ME! YOU DESTROYED ME! YOU RUINED __**EVERYTHING**__ THAT I AM!"_

"_I'M SORRY!" _she shrieked. "_I'M SORRY!"_

She felt a spike driving through her sides and her chest, piercing… piercing…

And suddenly she was back in Poison Ivy's bed. No one was attacking her, no zombies were clawing and scratching and shouting and choking, and she was sitting upright. She gently settled herself back into her bed before the adrenaline would wear out so it wouldn't hurt as badly.

The pain came anyway. The pain _always_ came, in one form or another.

She sobbed quietly to herself. She stayed like that for hours.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

**Why? **

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

"_I'm so sorry," _ she whispered softly.

* * *

*(1): _Epipogium aphyllum_ is a real plant. The Ghost Orchid (*insert creepy soundtrack here*) is one of the rarest flowers in the world_._ The reason why it's so rare is that it is completely dependent on a fungus that provides it with _all _of nutrients. And it is _completely _dependent. It can't even photosynthesize.

*(2): _Epiglottis asphyxiation_ is kind of a medical pun. As a (former) psychiatrist, Harley would've taken a course on the human body (as well as Health class, which is basic education), so she would (maybe?) know that the epiglottis is that flap in the throat that prevents you from choking every time you eat, and asphyxiation is basically death by suffocation.


End file.
